Tsuki no Shi
by BloodWineVampiress
Summary: Two stories woven together. Rin is a puppet of the Hunters, trying to survive the aftermath of the chaos with the vampires. Tsukiko is a pureblood, trying to survive Kaname Kuran's plans for the purebloods. (Tsukiko's story takes place approximately one year after Rin's.)
1. Prologue

_Mist shrouded the land. It swirled heavily around the ankles of the two women, obscuring their feet and what they stood on. White-grey clouds churned overhead. There was nothing else in the landscape besides the two women._

_The first woman was a haggard old crone. She was wrapped up in a large grey cloak. She had once been very beautiful, as one might see if they dared look close enough, but age and disease had ravaged her. Gone were her thick, shiny curls and her plump, rosy cheeks. Gone were the sparkles from her eyes and the smile from her lips. She was frail and bent but her mind was still agile. Her wit was sharp and her disdain for the beauty that had been taken from her was strong._

_The other woman was young and beautiful, but her image was in flux. Her appearance flickered disturbingly between that of a dark-haired woman with large lavender eyes and that of a pale-haired woman with onyx eyes. The only things that remained the same between the appearances were two depressions where bone was missing. There was a crescent shape under her left eye and an oval cut from her sternum. She also wore a grey cloak, but hers was pushed back on her shoulders to reveal a plain white dress underneath._

_"You are brave to take on this challenge," the hag told the young woman. There was no awe or approval in her tone._

_"I have no choice," the young woman said. "If I do not return, our kind may well be erased from the earth forever, by the very one who betrayed me."_

_"You want revenge."_

_"Of course, I want revenge!" the young woman snapped. Her image hesitated on the pale-haired version for a moment before beginning to flicker again. "But I also want peace for our kind. At first, I thought it was impossible, but then I glimpsed it and it was beautiful. But that upstart boy is going to ruin it all if I don't stop him!"_

_"Once you leave here, you will never be able to return," the old woman warned. "If you fail, you will be forced to wander that world forever as a ghost. Those are the rules."_

_"I understand," the young woman replied._

_"Which form do you choose? Pick carefully, you won't be able to change your mind."_

_The young woman halted her appearance on the pale-haired version. "This."_

_"Are you certain?"_

_"I am."_

_"Are you ready?"_

_"I am."_

_The crone waved her arm and a mirror appeared before the two. The image focused on the wooded grounds of a gothic styled school at night. A few lights flickered in the windows of the main school building, but most everything was dark. This was Cross Academy._

_A faint smile pulled at the corners of the young woman's mouth. "The school that tried to prove peace was possible and it nearly succeeded." She took two small steps toward the image, halting before she could touch it._

_"Go on, then, child," the crone urged. "Unless you've changed your mind…"_

_"I haven't," the young woman insisted. Slowly, she reached out her hand to brush the surface of the image. It rippled slightly, like it was made of water. The young woman vanished. The mist twirled in a frenzy to fill the space that was no longer filled._

_"She is truly your daughter, Hiroto," the crone said. A dark shape manifested in the mist, then grew as it approached the crone. When it finally emerged from the mist, it appeared as an aristocratic man, dressed in extravagant traditional dress._

_"I am proud of her," he said. "I wept for her pain but when I saw how it changed her I knew that it was necessary. Tsukiko must be a strong woman for what is to come."_

_"Do you think she will succeed?" the crone asked. As she spoke, she drew up the hood of her cloak so that it hid her face in shadow._

_"I do not know," Hiroto answered. "She has great power but that may be her very undoing."_

_"If she fails-" The crone shook her head inside the hood._

_"Do not think of that, Kasumi," Hiroto replied. "She has what she needs to succeed. It is up to our daughter now to make the right decisions."_

_The crone pushed back her hood and she was a crone no longer. Her youthful face was framed by mist colored curls but her eyes were clouded milky white, blind. "Let us hope, then, that our daughter has the ability to do so."_


	2. Going Home

"Don't go, Rin-sensei! Don't go!"

Rin could still hear the voices of the tearful cousins when she'd told them she was leaving. They were the youngest children of a little Hunter family that lived in the middle of nowhere. No one in the family had much talent to speak of; a fact that had made Rin feel like her master was punishing her by sending her out there to teach the children.

In the sixteen years since her master had sent her away, Rin had learned a lot about this little family. She'd watched the first generation of children grow up to have children of their own. She could see their passion clearly now and their potential gleamed like a mostly hidden diamond. In a few generations, they might produce a passable Hunter. Right now, the only thing they had was more spirit than the rest of the Association put together.

At first, she hadn't been well-liked at all. She'd been respected and feared because of her master and her own formidable abilities but she hadn't been liked. Rin had been used to this because she'd never been ordered to be liked. She quickly learned that when one lives with no other humans anywhere near, social bonds with the humans who _do_ live with you are essential. When her strategy changed, so did her popularity. Now, even the youngest children, too young to be under her tutelage yet, called her sensei.

But she was leaving that now. Her master had summoned her back. He needed her once more. Sixteen years was a blip in her excruciatingly long life but she'd never been abandoned for so long before. When she received the message that her master wanted her to go home again, she'd reacted with surprise and just a little reticence. Orders were compulsory of course; she didn't have the ability to refuse or even really want to refuse.

The moment she left the town and the people she'd come to care about, her grief over leaving vanished. This wasn't by choice, it was in her programming. Memories of her master flooded back and she felt quite sharply how much she had missed him. For the moment, all recognition that he had essentially abandoned her to follow a lifestyle of peace that was completely opposite to her directive was forgotten.

Rin was dressed for travel in dowdy grey. Her pale hair was pinned up in a tight bun at the back of her head and covered by a hat that matched her heavy wool coat. Her dress, plain and threadbare, was nearly blue and swished about her knees over matronly black shoes. She looked like she came out of a different time period but she was so plain that no one paid her much mind. The only time anyone paid her any attention was when they happened to catch a glimpse of the black crescent under her left eye. At first glance, it appeared to be a tattoo. Closer inspection, however, revealed it to be something hard like bone or metal imbedded in her skin.

The crescent clacked against the window when Rin finally gave in to her curiosity and leaned her face against the window to look for signs of the town that lay just before her destination. She was having a hard time imagining what sort of town would spring up outside her master's abode. She couldn't decide if it would be quaint and peaceful or dark and menacing.

Her master was, after all, quite eccentric. After living for as long as he had, it wasn't surprising that he'd picked up some odd habits. Anyone would. Humans weren't meant to live for two hundred years. By the looks of things, he master would be living a lot longer than that. Rin didn't mind her master's oddities but she suspected it would have cost him his job if he hadn't been quite so good at it. Not that it mattered anymore; he'd simply up and quit sixteen years ago. When Rin had protested, she'd been banished to the countryside. Rin's programming forced the thought out of her head. She couldn't doubt her master until her task was complete.

By the time the train pulled into the station (Rin preferred trains to all other modes of transportation), Rin's mind had moved on to considering what she would cook her master for supper. Her master liked to experiment in the kitchen and not everything he made was edible so most of the cooking had always been Rin's job. She worried about how he'd gotten along without her for sixteen years.

Rin carefully gathered up her things, not paying much mind to how long it took her. She had a bit of a walk before her and she didn't want to stop and rearrange her things every few minutes. The orders were in effect until she greeted her master and she wanted to do so as quickly as possible. Partially because of her orders, partly because her body was fallible and she wanted the rest her master would probably allow her once she'd seen him.

"Rin-chan!" was the first thing Rin heard on exiting the train. She heard the voice even through the crowd, even not expecting it, because it was her master's voice and she'd become very, very familiar with it after two centuries of serving him. Very shortly after that, she saw him. He was flailing his arms to get his attention as if calling her name hadn't been enough on top of the fact that she was designed to find her master wherever he was. Rin signed forlornly with a thought that she was getting too old to deal with things like this and made her way over to him.

"Look at you, you haven't changed at all, Rin-chan," her master said cheerily, reaching to take one of her bags from her. Rin stepped back, taking the bag just out of his reach.

"I…can't change, Kaien-sama," Rin answered. "You should know that." Kaien, meanwhile, was still reaching for Rin's bags. He hadn't taken a step forward, so he was leaning over, balancing rather precariously. "…You haven't changed, either." That was a lie. He'd gotten stranger, much stranger, but Rin didn't think it was worth mentioning.

"Rin," Kaien said, looking up so that the light caught in his glasses. "Give me your bags." It was an order, so Rin couldn't even argue. Her arms moved of their own accord, handing her suitcases to her master. Once the action was complete, Rin was freed enough so she could complain.

"You shouldn't be carrying my things, Kaien-sama," she said.

"And you shouldn't be calling me 'Kaien-sama'," Kaien replied. "How many times have I asked you not to?" Rin didn't respond because they both knew it had been many. Asking wasn't ordering, however, and it was in Rin's nature to refer to her master with "-sama". Sometimes, she didn't even realize she was saying it.

They walked in silence after that, but not for long.

"How old are you, Rin?" Kaien asked.

"Too old to bear saying," Rin answered without skipping a beat.

"No, I mean your face. How old were you when you stopped ageing?"

This time, Rin paused. "I've…always…looked like this. When I first woke up, I looked like this."

"Well, you look like you could be seventeen or eighteen to me," Kaien said, more to himself than to Rin.

"Why?"

"Have you ever wanted to be a high school girl, Rin?"

"No."

"You could have at least pretended," Kaien complained.

"Sorry."

"Well, it doesn't matter. You're going to have to play a school girl whether you like it or not. The Night Class is coming back and regardless of what Zero wants to say, disciplinary committee has become a two person job. You're the most qualified person I could think of."

"So, I'm to work with this Zero?"

"Yes. Don't worry if he seems a little prickly on the outside. It just means he likes you…I think… All joking aside, he really is a good kid."

"Why do I get the feeling you aren't telling me everything?" Rin asked.

"I've decided to give the Heirloom to him." Rin stopped in her tracks. The Heirloom was the single most important item in her life. It was what kept Rin a slave. If it were returned to her, she would be free. The Heirloom made its owner's word law to Rin. This effectively made the owner of the Heirloom her master.

Sixteen years and Rin came home to her master, only to be given away like hand-me-down clothes. Anger and grief surged through her for a moment. She skillfully pushed the emotions back down. She'd have plenty of time to brood that night before she went to bed.

"What were you saying?" she asked. "I apologize, but I wasn't listening closely enough, Kaien-sama."

"That I think I have some of Yuuki's old uniforms still, but I'm not sure if they'll fit you."

"Yuuki…" Rin repeated softly. "That's a pretty name."


End file.
